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Mount Vernon, Illinois
Mount Vernon is a city in and the county seat of Jefferson County, Illinois, United States. The population was 16,269 at the 2000 census. Mount Vernon is the principal city of the Mount Vernon Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Jefferson and Hamilton counties. Geography Mount Vernon is located at . According to the 2010 census, the city has a total area of , of which (or 99.39%) is land and (or 0.61%) is water. Mt. Vernon is located on high ground between Casey Creek and the Big Muddy River, which join south of the town in what is now Rend Lake. In pre-settlement times the area around these waterways was a swamp, a heavily forested area that was waist-deep in water during much of the winter and during wet summers. Mt. Vernon was thus often surrounded by water and swamp on three sides. High ground was located to the north of Mt. Vernon. A ridge ran between the Big Muddy River and Casey Creek north toward what is now Dix. There are high places both west and east of Mt. Vernon from which one can see the town as a forested point of high ground jutting out into the bottoms. These high places are: from the west, near the Woodlawn interchange off Interstate 64 and from the east, on Old Fairfield Road near Summersville School, with the highest point located on Old Route 15 right before it merges with New Route 15, near Bluford. History Mt. Vernon was founded in 1817 by Zadok Casey, who was elected to the State Senate in 1822 and was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1833. He served in the U.S. Congress between 1833 and 1843. The town was named for George Washington's plantation, Mount Vernon, which was named for Edward Vernon, a British naval hero. When the town was founded, there was no road to it. Travellers had to get there by either following the high ground from the north or crossing the swamps from the south. In the early 19th century the Goshen Road crossed Illinois in a northwesterly direction from Old Shawneetown, Illinois to the Goshen Settlement, near what is now Edwardsville. This road was the main road in Illinois. When Mt. Vernon was first settled, the Goshen Road made a wide arc across Jefferson County, crossing Casey Creek and the Big Muddy north of Mt. Vernon, avoiding the swamps to the south, but bypassing Mt. Vernon. The road entered the county at its southeast corner. It passed through, or near, what are now Opdyke, East Salem, Idlewood, Dix and Walnut Hill. It was apparent to the early settlers that the town would fail without roads. In 1820 - 1821, Ben Hood and Carter Wilkey built a bridge over Casey Creek, to the southeast of town. This bridge was near the present bridge on Illinois Route 142. A road was built from there northwest, over ground that is now impassable, toward the old cemetery behind the modern Bethel Cemetery. Deep cuts through the old cemetery attest to the location of the road. From there the road probably followed modern Route 37 into town, somewhere shifting from 10th Street on west to 12th Street. After the State capitol was moved to Vandalia in 1819, it became apparent that a road to Vandalia was needed. A party was sent out to the northwest to mark the road. In 1823, Thomas D. Minor and William Maxwell built the "Vandalia Road", now called the "Old Centralia Road." It runs northwest out of Mt. Vernon to Walnut Hill. Although legend says that this road is crooked because of the drunken state of the surveyors, the path is probably just the natural path of a pioneer road following the terrain. After the bridge and the Vandalia Road were built, Mt. Vernon was "on the map." The bridge across Casey Creek and the Vandalia Road provided a much shorter path across Jefferson County than the original Goshen Road. The new Goshen Road soon captured most of the traffic, and Mt. Vernon became an important stop on the road west. In 1836, Joshua Grant came to Mt. Vernon from Christian County, Kentucky with several of his sons and daughters. His family was an extremely wealthy, southern, slave-owning family, most of which soon moved to Arkansas, probably because slavery was illegal in Illinois. Joshua left behind several daughters and one son, Angus McNeil Grant, who soon became extremely important in the development of the town. "Upon his arrival, there were but four or five houses in the place, and from that time to the present (1883) he has constantly and ably exerted himself in securing to it the full development of its resources." Angus M. Grant's brother, Joshua Jr. taught school in Mt. Vernon in 1838. Some sources cite him as the first schoolteacher in the town. In 1848, the Illinois Supreme Court was relocated to Mt. Vernon. The 5th District Appellate Court was constructed around 1857 and is still in use as the Appellate Court House. When the Supreme Court was in session, the important lawyers in Illinois, including Abraham Lincoln, gathered in Mt. Vernon to argue their cases. The lawyers gathered at the Mt. Vernon Inn, owned by Angus McNeil Grant and his in-laws, the Andersons. This building has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973. In the 1870s, Mt. Vernon for a time prohibited the sale of alcohol. A village called "East Mt. Vernon" was organized in 1877 to allow the sale of alcohol. A court fight eventually held that the village was organized illegally. Mt. Vernon then voted alcohol back in, and the area of East Mt. Vernon was annexed into the city. On February 19, 1888, a tornado cut a path a half mile wide through Mt. Vernon, killing 37 people and destroying more than 450 houses. The Jefferson County Courthouse was destroyed. This event was one of the first disasters to which the American Red Cross responded. Clara Barton herself directed the relief efforts. The Mt. Vernon Car Manufacturing Company opened in 1889 after moving from Litchfield, Illinois. This relocation may have been an outgrowth of the relief efforts following the tornado. The Louisville and Nashville Railroad hauled in some 1,900 carloads of supplies for reconstruction of the town. Somehow, this effort translated into a major business building railroad cars, at first building about ten cars per day. By 1909, the car shops were producing 25 cars per day, employing more than 1000 workers, with a payroll of $60,000 per month. During World War II, portions of the "Car Shops," as they had to come to be known, were converted over to wartime production, including the production of bomb casings. In 1954, the car shops closed, causing a temporary jump in unemployment throughout the city and the 108 communities called "home" by its former employees. Around 1939, a portion of the car shops was purchased by Precision Engineering, which originally built components for locomotives. During the 1970s, this company purchased old diesel/electric railroad locomotives, which it scrapped out or refurbished. Today, the plant thrives as a hub for National Railway EquipmentNationalrailway.com which rebuilds and services diesel electric locomotives for rail lines across the globe. Ironically, the facility is poised to again become one of the area's largest employers as sales of its innovative hybrid locomotives fuel plant expansion to include another facility across town. The Interstate Highway System was built in the late 1950s and 1960s. The concurrency of I-57 and I-64 is along the western border of the ridgeline which divides the Big Muddy River and Casey Creek. The stack interchange on the southwest side of town complements the historic Casey Creek bridges, allowing much shorter travel times through the swamps to the east and south. In April 2007, Mount Vernon voters elected the first female mayorhttp://www.register-news.com/archivesearch/local_story_107211926.html of the city, Mary Jane Chesley. She was sworn into office on May 7, 2007.http://www.register-news.com/archivesearch/local_story_127125324.html Mount Vernon hosts a facility for Continental Tire of North America - the German company's only manufacturing site in the United States- and is home to major distribution centers for NAPA, National Railway Equipment, ALCO and IPT, these are subsidiaries of NREC, and Walgreens along with many other smaller industries such as Vanex, Central Wholesale Liquors, IL-MO Welding supplies, Pepsi of Mid America, A.L. LEE Corporation, Goodman Air Conditioning, US Supply Co, Mine Supply Company, National Fabrication, IBT, Bearing Headquarters, Mt Vernon Mold Works, Wiese Forklift Service Center, Black Forklift Service Center, Penske, Beelman Trucking, Clinton County Ready-Mix, Calison Wholesale Liquor, Praxair, Ultron Electronics, FedEx, UPS/Overnite, Springfield Electric, Mt Vernon Electric, Roadway Express, Guaranteed Freight, Bennett Metals, Sun Container, Three-States Supply Co, Phoenix Modular Elevator Company and Petter Trucking,which are located in or within close proximity to the city's three industrial parks. In addition two new industries have made Mt Vernon home, Intermountain Electronics, which soon will be located in the Rolland Lewis Industrial Centre on the west side of the city and Veyance Tech/National Belt, which makes 5-6 mile long conveyor belts for coal mines. There is currently discussion of creating a fourth industrial park which is to be used for distribution center's in the area of the new interchange, this park would encompass and would be eligible for Tax Increment Financing and Enterprise Zone benefits. The town is a regional hub for recreation, retail, employment, and health care, and is in the process of having a new I-57/64 interchange constructed south of the current State Route 15 interchange and will be known as Exit 94 or Veterans Memorial Drive. As of November 25, 2009, Exit 94 is now officially opened for traffic. A portion of Davidson Ave that was unfinished was finally completed in September 2010 allowing another through access road to the Rolland Lewis Industrial Centre and Walgreens distribution center. Recent development includes a Kohl's Department Store which is projected to open early 2011 and Buffalo Wild Wings which opened December 19, 2010. Two new TIF or Tax Increment Finance districts have been created, one TIF is at Exit 95 and is a conservation/industrial use. While Exit 94 is an Industrial Park Conservation TIF. Pepsi has just committed to building a new service and distribution center that will be completed in March 2011, it is to be located off of the new Davidson Ave extension. Demographics As of the census of 2000, there were 16,269 people, 6,988 households and 4,157 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,412.1 people per square mile (545.3/km²). There were 7,814 housing units at an average density of 678.2 per square mile (261.9/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 84.25% White, 12.36% African American, 0.17% Native American, 0.77% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.47% from other races and 1.97% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.49% of the population. There were 6,988 households out of which 27.4% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 42.1% were married couples living together, 13.9% had a female householder with no husband present and 40.5% were non-families. 35.9% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.25 and the average family size was 2.92. In the city the population was spread out with 24.7% under the age of 18, 9.1% from 18 to 24, 24.9% from 25 to 44, 21.9% from 45 to 64 and 19.3% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 38 years. For every 100 females there were 84.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 80.4 males. The median income for a household in the city was $28,145 and the median income for a family was $36,660. Males had a median income of $31,569 versus $20,198 for females. The per capita income for the city was $16,268. About 13.0% of families and 17.1% of the population were below the poverty line, including 20.5% of those under age 18 and 12.9% of that age 65 or over. Notable people * Randy Fenoli, an American television presenter and fashion designer * Dwight Bernard, pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers and New York Mets * Ray Blades, left fielder for the St Louis Cardinals; manager for the Cardinals and Brooklyn Dodgers * Louis Emmerson, 29th Governor of Illinois from 1929-1933. * Wilford F. Hall, US Army and Air Force major general;"Major General Wilford F. Hall," United States Air Force, https://web.archive.org/web/20100413020934/http://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5676 namesake of Wilford Hall, Lackland AFB, San Antonio * Jeane Kirkpatrick, US ambassador to the United Nations; graduated from Mt. Vernon Township High School. * Albert Watson II, US Army lieutenant general during World War II References * History of Jefferson County, Illinois, William Henry Perrin, 1883 * Mt. Vernon Illinois A Pictorial History, Thomas A. Puckett, 1991, Bradley Publishing company External links * * History of Jefferson County * Mt. Vernon Car Shops History * Register-news.com * WDML 106.9FM Radio Website * WMIX Radio Website * Mount Vernon Township High School * Mitchell Museum at Cedarhurst Center for the Arts Category:Cities in Jefferson County, Illinois Category:Mount Vernon, Illinois micropolitan area Category:County seats in Illinois Category:Settlements established in 1817